'BBC Article' new news but old news

Hospitals rapped for failing to give patients medicines
By Nick Triggle
Health reporter, BBC News

Elderly patient
The watchdog is writing to all the hospitals in England and Wales

Too many patients are not getting the medicines they need in hospital, a safety watchdog says.

The National Patient Safety Agency warned it was a problem in every hospital in England and Wales and is now writing to them urging action.

The watchdog said it had evidence of thousands of cases of patients getting their drugs late or not at all, including 27 resulting in deaths.

The government said patient safety was its top priority.

From September 2006 to June 2009, the NPSA received reports of 27 deaths, 68 cases of severe harm, including permanent disability, as well as another 21,000 less serious cases where drugs had not been given or had been given too late.

I'm surprised this has made the headlines as it's not bloody news. I remember those days in the surgical ward where I would regularly have 12-14 patients with a health care assistant. The assistant (depending on their experience) can take BP,Pulse etc, wash/shower patients and do the odd dressing.

I would give all the oral meds, give all the IV meds, get patients ready for theatre, be there for patients coming back from theatre, look after any infusions eg blood, change dressings, assist with daily hygiene needs, admitting and discharging patients and then looking after any patients not conforming and getting more ill instead of better.

I haven't included any of the less critical but also important things we do like: spend time with patients, exercising them, feeding them, showering them, educating them.

In fact I'm rather pissed off. This article is in the news now, when this was the situation twelve fucking years ago, and again six years ago when I was last working in Britain.

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